Despite a total of 3.34 xG (recalculated after the game by Opta after the initial total of 2.98), Forest were unable to put the ball in the net for a second time through a period of complete domination in the first half.

It shouldn’t be ignored though that there will be players in all of the position groups who will have been sat on the coach home last night disappointed with some of their actions. Yes, perhaps the poor close-range shots by Delap and then Ndoye are more egregious than the mistakes leading to Palace’s goals, but they’re all equally as damaging in a game where we saw Forest’s best spell of football since Sunderland away in April.

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Analysing Crystal Palace’s Goals

I don’t think there’s too much I can say on those aforementioned misses that hasn’t already been said - there was a real lack of composure from Delap when he really should’ve calmly scored a rebound, and then also from Ndoye (although his chance was more difficult and at least he had already scored a really nice opening goal).

So instead, I’ll delve into what happened at the other end. On the whole this season, Forest have defended fairly well and put up some of the best defensive numbers in the league. Despite the early goal though, I didn’t feel like Forest had any real control in the game until after the 10th minute.

Murillo has pushed up here to try and regain the ball after McAtee’s pass is intercepted, 5 seconds later Palace are essentially 3 v 2 on the edge of the Forest box. This is not how Glasner wants Forest to play, particularly when they have the lead.

To the team’s credit, for the next half an hour they assumed total control. From that moment in the screenshot, Forest put up 1.85 xG in the following 29 minutes, to Palace’s 0 - outshooting them 11-0. But after Delap’s miss, Palace had the next 3 shots, all on target, and two of them resulting in goals.

For the first goal, Daniel Muñoz makes a couple of poor actions that put Forest on the back foot. That’s followed up by Ola Aina being far too attracted to the ball. He’s already in an advanced position anyway, and had regularly been jumping out of the line with some success in turning the ball over - but not on this occasion.

Aina doesn’t really know who to cover, and ends up being bypassed really easily by quick movement of the ball from Palace. Schlager also does a poor job in not tracking the run of Timber who has a big part to play in the goal.

In this second clip, you can see the dilemma that Diomande has. Glasner’s back 5 is designed to allow for one of the wider centre backs to push out, whilst the other two shuffle across to make it a temporary back 4 - with Aina already high, when Murillo goes out as well, Diomande has two attackers to worry about.

Another disappointment here, is the amount of Forest defenders who are just standing around watching this happen. Aina (who has done this before, most memorably at Man City away last season), Muñoz & Schlager all don’t seem interested enough here as the play develops. It’s unlikely that any of them can actually stop this goal, but it’s certainly not a good look to stand and watch it happen, when any footballer will tell you that a tiny amount of pressure can change a player’s decision making.

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For Palace’s second goal, there’s not much I can really say about it apart from point out how poor the man-marking effort from Gibbs-White is here. He doesn’t really want to engage physically with Lerma, and by the time the ball reaches his head, he’s a yard away from Gibbs-White who has his back to the ball.

For a long time now I’ve been suggesting Gibbs-White shouldn’t be given man-marking roles, it doesn’t suit his aerial strengths. We know he’s a good header of the ball and will battle to get to a ball first, but ask him to engage against physically stronger opponents in this kind of manner, and it’s just not his game.

For me, Gibbs-White is a prime candidate for a zonal man-marking role - this was an issue last season when Dyche initially took charge, and one of the things Dyche actually got right was moving Gibbs-White to a zonal role.

The third and final Crystal Palace goal also isn’t pretty viewing, and unfortunately Gibbs-White has a small role to play in this one as well. Twice the ball gets played into his feet, and twice he isn’t able to make it stick or find a team mate as Canvot gets the better of him.

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Actions that helped the team increase their probability of scoring a goal, receive a positive score, whilst on the other hand actions that decrease the chance of scoring a goal receive a negative score. To a read a little bit more about my Player Impact metric, there’s a more in-depth piece that I wrote on the Analysts Bar website here.

For a while now I’ve wanted to make some further adjustments and additions to this metric though, to the point where I felt it appropriate to rebuild it and create something new. I’m calling this Points Above Replacement, or PAR.

Fans of other sports, particularly American Sports like Baseball & Ice Hockey, might be familiar with the metric Wins Above Replacement (WAR). This metric estimates how many additional wins a player contributes to his team, compared to a readily available replacement player in the same role.

The aim here is to assign a value to answer the question “how much better than the average player is Player A?”. This is exactly what PAR is trying to do - so let me get in to some of the workings into this metric.

What Goes In To PAR?

Player Impact was built off the back of the widely used Expected Threat metric, developed initially by Karun Singh, who later went on to work with Arsenal as a Data Scientist. PAR still uses the same principle, but with some further tweaks based on data availble from matches across Europe within the last year.

Without getting into too much detail, I’ve revamped the scoring values behind the non-shot actions a player makes during the game. This pitch image below shows the values that can be translated to percentages - each zone shows the proportion of open play actions starting there that were followed by a goal for the same team within the next 12 seconds.

You’ll see quite clearly that the closer to the opposition goal (the team here is attacking from left to right), the more likely a team is to score a goal - this isn’t anything new, of course this will be the case. But we’re able to assign a value to it that can then be built in to the PAR calculations. Conversely, we can then use these values to determine how a defensive actions harms the opposition’s chances of scoring.

What this is telling you is that across 1,749 matches in Europe’s top divisions last season, if a team attempted a pass from just inside the attacking left corner of the box, there’s a 4.3% chance that they will score a goal within the next 12 seconds. If that attempted pass is a cross that successfully reaches a team mate just in front of the penalty spot, that likelihood increases to 16.7%. For the purpose of PAR, the player making that pass is awarded with the difference in those percentages, in this case 12.4%(0.124).

However, from a defensive point of view, if a defensive player was to make an interception and/or clearance from that cross, then they have reduced their opponent’s chance of scoring by that zone amount of 16.7% (0.167).

Shots are treated differently within PAR, seeing as we are able to measure not only the chance quality (xG), but also the shot quality (xGOT) too. The thinking here within PAR is that if a striker takes a shot from the edge of the box where the xG is 0.05, but aims his shot really well toward the corner and is given an xGOT figure of 0.22, then according to the data he has increased his team’s likelihood of scoring.

In this instance, if the goalkeeper makes a save then the shot taker would be given a value of 0.17, as the shot quality is higher than the chance quality.

There are moments where we deviate slightly from this thinking though, in particular for rewarding goalscorers and the player making the assist too, as after all these are the real difference-making actions within a game.

‘Negative’ actions, such as bookings & own goals, are also treated differently, this time with a negative score. We also assign a small value for defenders & midfielders involved in clean sheets, and also a small penalty for when a goal is conceded.

The other key thing I’ve introduced here is a weighting related to the timing and scoreline within a game. Seeing as we’re trying to give a value to players that is related to Points, we’re making actions that take place whilst the scoreline is level, weighted a little heavier - with the theory being that these actions help the team gain an advantage (or pass the advantage to the opposition) when the game is finely balanced.

To think of it in a more simple way - I’d argue that a goal scored at 0-0 to make the scoreline 1-0, is more important when trying to calculate the impact on gaining Points, than the 4th goal scored in the 90th minute in a 4-0 win.

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How Does PAR Differ To Player Impact

The biggest difference with PAR & Player Impact, is that we’re able to come up with actual positive & negative values attributed to players. These values are relevant within the company of their peers in the same league. Player Impact is still relevant within a single match, where the data can show who has the biggest impact on the field on that specific day.

Over the course of a season, my Player Impact metric at times was shown as an overall + or - figure, but that didn’t have any real relation to what we were seeing on the pitch, it was just a number.

PAR allows us to really differentiate those players having a postive contribution for their team, whilst also comparing them to the positional average within the league too. It can then get taken a little further and help us compare across all positions, with the key point being that if we add up every player’s PAR score then it will always total at 0.

We’ll then compare a player’s total with their positional peers, accounting for their playing time, and convert the difference into an estimated points contribution. We do this using the relationship between the actual points teams have won and the combined value of their players’ actions on the pitch, as described above.

From that, a score of +1 PAR represents an estimated contribution of one point above what an average player within that competition would produce in the same position and game time.

Player Impact as a metric will still remain in my analysis, but mainly as a way of analysing performances within a single match across all players on the pitch.

Current Premier League Rankings

Despite the small sample size, we’ll still take a quick look at the highest scorers according my new PAR metric - but first we’ll have a sense check around the total PAR per team compared with league position. You’d expect to see the teams higher up in the league generally have the highest total PAR from their players.

And that is indeed what we do see - there are a couple of outliers, most notably Chelsea in 10th position & Man Utd in 12th position, but otherwise the trend line is pretty clear that teams lower down in the league have a smaller total PAR among their squad.

Now let’s take a quick look at the current leaders in PAR after the opening 5 games of the Premier League season, including only players who have played at least 50% of minutes this season (225). Man City are sitting pretty at the top of the table, driven by some fantastic performances by Rayan Cherki & Erling Haaland, who rank 1st & 3rd respectively.

Pascal Groß has also been enjoying a fine start to the season for Brighton, he ranks in 2nd spot just ahead of Haaland. Bukayo Saka comes in 4th position after scoring 3 in the opening 5 games, with Bruno Fernandes - who had the highest PAR in the Premier League last season, completing the current top 5.

Looking just at Nottingham Forest’s rankings, the club have 11 outfield players who have played over 225 minutes in the Premier League this season, with 5 of them currently holding a positive PAR score, signifying they are performing above the average level compared to their peers.

Morgan Gibbs-White, who ranked 8th in the Premier League on this metric last season, leads the way for Forest in this campaign. It’s likely that Gibbs-White’s PAR score will improve once the sample size of players in his position increases. He’s followed closely by Liam Delap who has quickly established himself in the starting lineup.

In 3rd spot for Forest is Murillo - a player who I suggested in the summer would have a key role to play in Oliver Glasner’s system. He’s popped up in advanced areas of the pitch in all phases, and is having a decent start to the season. He’s followed by another player who is key to the tactical plan in James McAtee, as he’s making the most of his new lease of life under the Austrian.

The top 5 is closed off by Neco Williams, last season’s player of the year who is still adjusting to his more advanced role on the left hand side. It should also be pointed out that just missing out on the sample size filter is Daniel Munoz, who is actually leading the Forest side in PAR despite only playing just over 210 minutes.

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PAR Is Still An Incomplete Metric

Like the vast majority of publicly available and published metrics, PAR is also missing some really important context and data points. Although tracking data (that will show you the positioning of all 22 players on the field as often as 25 times per second) is available for some leagues, that is only generally for historical seasons.

Data for current seasons is incredibly expensive to get hold of, and therefore is kept behind closed doors within each club’s training ground, as data teams will be creating metrics similar to PAR for leagues all over the world.

That means that PAR is only able to measure ‘on-ball’ actions by players, but as we all know, so much of football is what happens off the ball. That run behind by a striker that isn’t found by a team mate, that small pressure by a winger, that forces his opponent to go backwards, that sideways shuffle from a central midfielder to close off a passing lane - all of these actions cannot be captured by the event data used by PAR.

There’s also some work I’d still like to do to the metric - particularly in that I’ll soon be including Goalkeepers within the output. Although we can fairly easily analyse the performance of goalkeepers by looking at their Goals Prevented - later this season I’ll be sharing a more well-rounded view that includes all of the actions a goalkeeper makes during the game.

Finally, particularly at this very early stage of the season, there’s a huge caveat around the sample size. One very good performance in the opening 5 games of the Premier League season will really boost a player’s current PAR score. But once we’re able to use this across a far larger sample size, and then create something along the lines of a ‘PAR per 10 games’ metric, then we’ll be able to compare players far more fairly.

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Morgan Gibbs-White

A late call up to the senior squad as a replacement for Cole Palmer, Gibbs-White returned after just one day of a family holiday to Dubai, during a one week period that Oliver Glasner gave the non-international players off.

Forest’s number 10 appeared in all of England’s Nations League games from the bench, gradually coming on earlier as the window went on.

Unfortunately, with his total time on the pitch barely breaking 40 minutes, it was difficult for Gibbs-White to make a positive impression. It was only in his final, 18 minute appearance against Czechia last night where he was able to play consistently in his favoured position.

The noises from Tuchel around the manner in which Cole Palmer pulled out of the squad didn’t sound good from the Chelsea man’s point of view, but the German’s hestitancy to give Gibbs-White a real chance means it feels unlikely that he’ll be named in the squad for next month’s matches.

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Neco Williams

4 starts for Williams, 3 as a right back and 1 as a left back, took his international cap tally up to 61 - an impressive number for a 25 year old. Neco scored the winner against Norway in Cardiff, a well struck free-kick but one that probably should’ve been saved.

The break was disappointing for Williams and for his country though, losing the other 3 games and putting them in real danger of being relegated from League A with games against Portugal and Norway remaining.

We never really seem to have any worries about Neco’s fitness, but he did play every minute of those 4 games - thankfully with that last game being on Sunday, and with very little travel involved, he should have plenty of time to be back at full fitness ahead of the trip to London.

Xaver Schlager

Oliver Glasner’s first signing of the summer started and finished all 4 games for his country during this window, captaining the side on two occasions as they remained unbeaten with 2 wins and 2 draws placing them 1st in their League B Group.

Schlager was very busy in the heart of Austria’s midfield, particularly in the final 2 games, and he spoke after the final game about how he didn’t really understand why the break had been lengthened - although these comments came after a 4 games in 11 days, and after 90 minutes on what apparently was a very poor surface to play on in Kosovo.

Like Williams, Schlager’s workload was incredibly high, but Forest will feel positive about him having a full week of training and an extra day before the Crystal Palace game.

Dan Ndoye

So often the most debated topic at Forest, Ndoye has played brilliantly for his country during this international break, scoring 2 and assisting 3 as Switzerland won all 4 games in League B.

These kind of performances on the international stage are nothing new, with his tally now reaching 10 goal contributions in 2026 with 2 games still to play, the biggest frustration is that we’re still yet to see that in a Forest shirt.

The biggest difference of course is the standard of opponents, with Ndoye regularly (in this break at least) coming up against a standard of defence he just wouldn’t see in the Premier League.

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During this transfer window back in 2024, Forest pulled off one of the best deals in Premier League history when they sold Odysseas Vlachodimos to Newcastle United for £15m, and brought in Elliot Anderson for a reported £35m - he showed very quickly he was worth far more than that, with Forest getting £116m for him this summer.

Anderson wasn’t part of my target list for two reasons - firstly, he had no top level senior experience playing in the midfield two that Nuno was setting Forest up in, and secondly, his playing time was spread all across the pitch so it was difficult to know where his best position would be from a data perspective.

Thankfully, Forest used their own data, scouts & experience to bring Anderson in, and it turned out to be a fantastic decision. In the meantime, let’s look at who I proposed in midfield & attack.

Central Midfielders

I proposed 6 players here, 3 for a more defensive minded midfield role, and 3 for a more attacking minded one. Similar to the previous post, sometimes I went for a player who was more of a ‘wildcard’ from a lower quality league.

Defensive Minded Midfielder #1 - Ethan Ampadu (Leeds United)

After being signed for just over £7m plus add-ons in 2023, Ampadu enjoyed a good season for a Leeds side that failed to gain promotion from the Championship. I was of the view that his versatility and significant experience at the age of just 23 would be really important to the Forest side.

Leeds obviously went on to win promotion in the 2024/25 season with Ampadu sticking around after no real concrete interest. He’s gone on to prove himself as a very capable player at Premier League level in central midfield, whislt still also being able to fill in when required in a back 3 system.

Verdict: Ampadu has shown he would’ve been a fine signing for almost anyone in the Premier League, and would add value to each 25-man squad, pushing for a starting role in at least half the league. 5/5.

Defensive Minded Midfielder #2 - Andre (Fluminense)

If Forest were going to dip their toe back in the Brazilian market during the summer of 2024, I thought the idea of going in for Andre would’ve been a really smart one - albeit one that would come with a cost higher than their previous deals for Brazilian players.

Andre moved to Wolves in the same summer, and became a key part of the side that staved off relegation, but then eventually fell down into the Championship last season.

Verdict: I think Andre showed that he is also a capable Premier League midfielder, albeit one who might need to control his aggression a little better. With him now playing in the Championship, it’s hard to score him too highly here in this review. 3/5.

Defensive Minded Midfielder #3 - Eric Martel (FC Koln)

Martel’s data profile was particularly interesting, as a 22 year old he put up some of the strongest defensive numbers in the Bundesliga for an FC Koln side that were eventually relegated. His profile as a ball playing midfielder was not strong, so I saw Martel as an option as a bit of a destroyer in the middle of the park.

He was reportedly available for less than £5m after that relegation to 2. Bundesliga, but no team came in for him. He played an important role in Koln’s immediate return to the Bundesliga, and again last season, before moving on a free transfer to Mainz this past summer.

Verdict: With nobody taking a chance on Martel 2 seasons ago, and him now currently being a bench player for his new side Mainz, I can only really go as high as a 2/5.

Attack Minded Midfielder #1 - Matt O’Riley (Celtic)

Matt O’Riley was putting up some tremendous numbers north of the border when I put him forward as a player Forest could potentially target, with 30 goal involvements in 37 league games. I felt that it would take a bid of over £20m to tempt Celtic to do business, but that it would be a deal worth pursuing considering his attacking instincts that Forest arguably are still to this day lacking from central midfield.

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Back then I was in the real infancy of what at the time was simply a hobby - as many of you know after improving my knowledge and understanding across the board, I’ve since been fortunate enough to be given opportunities within the game - but it’s still really interesting to go back and look at who I suggested, and where they are now.

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For each position in that series of posts, I suggested three players. For the most part, 2 of these were intended to offer an immediate impact, whilst the third was a bit of a ‘wildcard’ pick in that they were either a younger player or came from a lower standard league.

The ‘immediate’ impact players will be marked with a score ranging from 5 (fantastic suggestion), to 1 (terrible suggestion). The ‘wildcard’ players will be ranked slightly differently, with a 2 representing when the player has moved upwards in their career, and a 1 for when they have remained where they were, or moved down a level.

Centre Backs

There were 6 players suggested here - 3 with a view of replacing Murillo (as he was heavily linked with moves away that summer), and another 3 to replace Willy Boly - remember the club essentially signed Nikola Milenkovic for this role, largely due to his ability to help his side defend from set pieces.

Murillo Replacement #1 - Jon Pacheco (Real Soceidad)

At the age of 23, Pacheco had enjoyed a good season with Real Soceidad in La Liga, and as a left-footer was an option to replace Murillo in the starting lineup whilst also giving Forest a far stronger aerial option.

Pacheco remained at Real Soceidad the following season, moving in and out of the team throughout the campaign whilst also picking up an injury that kept him out for a couple of months. Last season, he was sent out on loan to Alaves, before returning to Real Soceidad this summer.

Verdict: Pacheco hasn’t exactly moved upwards in his career, but has remained in La Liga. He gets a 3/5.

Murillo Replacement #2 - Kike Salas (Sevilla)

Salas represented an option that was more similar to Murillo in profile, with defensive numbers that were some of the highest in La Liga during the 2023/24 campaign.

He remains at Sevilla, making another 59 appearances since my initial suggestion, and also made his debut for the Spanish U21 side.

Verdict: Like Pacheco, Salas hasn’t moved to another club - but he has proven himself to be a capable defender in the Spanish top flight. He also gets a 3/5.

Murillo Replacement #3 - Marco Friedl (Werder Bremen)

Austrian Friedl represented the last of my potential replacements if Murillo was to have departed. I felt this was perhaps the most likely of the options considering Forest’s history in the German market. Friedl profiled as a very strong reader of the game, who was one of the best in the Bundesliga at blocking shots.

Friedl, like the other two targets, also hasn’t moved on, but that isn’t to say he wouldn’t have been a good option. He remains captain of Werder Bremen, and also made 2 appearances at the World Cup for his country.

Verdict: Whilst Friedl also hasn’t made a move to another side, he continues to play a big part for his side in the Bundesliga whilst forcing his way back in to the Austrian national team. 3/5.

Willy Boly Replacement #1 - Sepp van den Berg (Liverpool)

After 3 seasons away from Liverpool on loan at Preston, Schalke & Mainz, it was fairly clear that van den Berg wanted a permanent exit in the summer of 2024. His defensive metrics were very strong in the Bundesliga, and at the age of 22 Liverpool were reportedly asking for around £20m for his signature.

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A lot of you will be looking at the league table and seeing Forest in the giddy heights of 13th position. OK, perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic, although this start to the season falls right in the middle of the pack when it comes to the 5 seasons since promotion.

It’s not going against the grain for Forest to have dropped points in the early stage of the season against a team that you’d hope they’d be beating. There’s a draw at home to Burnley and one away to the same opposition - both matches against a promoted side where the result was far from ideal.

But of course, it’s also not against the grain for Forest to have picked up some points against what could be seen as superior opposition. They memorably won at Anfield in September 2024, and at Stamford Bridge in the previous season. This campaign, there’s been a win against Aston Villa that was probably more of a complete performance than either of those two games, plus another point on the road at Anfield.

Personally, I’d pegged Forest to have somewhere around 5 & 8 points in these opening matches, with my feeling that anything outside of that boundary would be a surprise. In reality, the surprise has probably been where those 5 points have come from.

I’d expected a win against Coventry, a draw against Tottenham, and then a bit of a coin flip against Leeds - in my mind Forest would take no points from their two away trips. Instead, it’s been pretty much the opposite - it’s for each and every one of us to decide whether this is a positive thing, or a negative thing.

Many people aren’t fans of Expected Goals, nor data within football in general. The reality is, this is only the beginning of how data is used in football, and seeing as you are subscribed to my website the chances are you are at least open to hearing about how performances so far can be rated by what the data says as well as our eyes - thankfully, that’s what I’m here for!

The Expected Goals Premier League Table has Forest in 3rd position. That seems a bit of a stretch to me, but when you see that this has Forest on a projected 9 points, perhaps it’s not so farfetched.

Both the Leeds & Coventry games for me were essentially 0-0 games with poor individual errors costing Forest the draw. The Spurs game saw Forest had a goal controversially ruled out (as did the Coventry game), and although my personal view is that those decisions were probably correct, it can very easily be argued that Forest could have drawn all 3, lost all 3, or even won all 3.

Keeping The Game In The Balance

I mentioned in during my deep dives into Oliver Glasner before the season started that one of his traits at Crystal Palace was keeping the game always within reach. Last season, Palace spent over 85% of their game time where there was no more than 1 goal between the teams - so far this season at Forest, it’s been like that in every single second of the Premier League season.

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Having spent time at Crumlin United - a Dublin side that Forest had an official partnership with back in the late 2,000s - Noonan made his senior debut for St. Pat’s Athletic back in February 2024 aged just 15 and 187 days.

He’d make just the 1 appearance in the League of Ireland, before moving to Shamrock Rovers the following January, despite reported interest from Manchester City and St. Pat’s’ attempts to keep him. Soon after, he’d become the youngest scorer in the history of the Europa Conference League, with a winning goal against Molde in a knockout tie, aged just 16 years and 197 days old.

Since joining Shamrock Rovers - his boyhood club - he’s played 81 senior games for them, scoring 16 times. Earlier this year he was linked with a move to Hoffenheim, with a fee of around €1.8m agreed. This deal fell through though with Noonan reportedly hesitant to move to Germany.

He was linked with other teams including Ajax, Benfica & Chelsea, before Forest’s name was thrown in the frame back in June. According to John Percy, the, Forest have reportedly won the battle to sign him and will pay a training compensation fee to the Irish side.

International & Professional Experience At A Young Age

Although the level of competition is far lower than English football, and probably the PL2 as well, for a player of Noonan’s age it’s a huge positive that he already has so much experience in senior football - including 17 European appearances.

Noonan also has significant experience with the Republic of Ireland’s youth sides, and was a big part of their team that reached the Quarter Finals of last year’s U17 World Cup - scoring 3 goals, alongside one of Forest’s most recent academy signings, Grady McDonnell.

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It was well spoken about ahead of this game, that one of the reasons to be optimistic ahead of the trip to Villa Park, was the fact Oliver Glasner has a tremendous record against Emery. We just weren’t sure if that would outweigh the poor record Forest have had in this stadium or not.

This in, Glasner’s 6th in 8 contests against Emery, was fully deserved, and followed the trend we’d seen since Glasner joined Crystal Palace. 21 goals for, 5 conceded, and 4 clean sheets. If only the Austrian was here 4 and a bit months earlier!

Although Emery’s record against Glasner specifically is poor, it’s a trend that followed Villa last season whenever they faced up against variations of a back 3 system. In just under 500 minutes of Premier League football against this system, Emery’s Villa side were only in the lead for 12.84% (62 minutes). This is a huge reduction on the 27.29% figure they had against any other tactical set up.

This also reflects in the goals being scored at both ends too - against a back 3 last season Emery’s team scored just 3 goals, conceding 6, resulting in a goal difference of -3. This again compares poorly to when they faced any other system, where their goal difference was +10.

So perhaps it’s not just Glasner’s record that was working in Forest’s favour, but also Emery’s poorer record in general when he goes up against this kind of system.

How Forest Made Villa Struggle

It’s not a new thing to see this Forest side (under any of the recent managers) to try and make it difficult for opponents to play through the middle. But Glasner is getting his side to execute the same plan but in a slightly different fashion.

Firstly, concentrate on how often Schlager (and to a degree McAtee as well) is checking his shoulder for Buendia’s positioning. If the Argentinian shuffles one way, Schlager follows, but he stays on a similar vertical line to his midfield partner.

With Forest’s relatively narrow front 3 ahead of them, Villa’s deeper midfield two will always struggle to receive the ball off the centre backs. The clever thing here though, is who triggers the press.

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Forest started the game allowing Tottenham to build up from the back in the first phase almost completely unopposed. With both their full backs in Destiny Udogie & Pedro Porro really happy in getting forward, and with Forest generally protecting the middle of the field with their narrow shape, this allowed Spurs to regularly create 2 v 1s on either flank.

We see early in the game that Forest allow the centre backs to bring the ball out from the back in the intial phase, and this shape of having 4 players almost inside the centre circle, with Ndoye wide on the left to try to take Porro out of the build up, leaves Udogie in lots of space on the left. I found this a little frustrating, as when Forest would successfully force Spurs back, they would then press high up the field.

Udogie can then burst forward, play a ball in to Tel who drags Jair Cunha wide, and create an overload on the left flank that has the potential to become dangerous for Tottenham.

Only a few minutes later from a Spurs goal kick, Aina isn’t high on the right so the ball can go to Udogie out wide, leaving Ndoye to try and chase him back. He eventually succeeds in pulling him back and is probably fortunate not to get booked.

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The poor and mostly uninspiring performances against Leeds United were quickly forgotten on Saturday, as Oliver Glasner’s Forest side really looked like they knew their roles & responsibilities, and carried out a tactical plan in a proactive way.

Setting Traps & Keeping Wirtz Quiet

Long time followers of my account will remember how I broke down Forest’s tactical plan under Nuno when they beat Liverpool 1-0 at Anfield in 2024. On that day, Forest lined up with 4 central midfielders (with Anderson & Dominguez on the wings), and would create shapes around Liverpool’s midfielders before pouncing on them to create turnovers.

Glasner’s plan for this game had similar principles, but carried out in a slightly different way, whilst also being slightly more proactive. In this first clip, despite still adjusting to a deeper role James McAtee shows that he is well aware of the threat posed by Wirtz, by scanning multiple times before pressing Mac Allister.

He’s able to follow Schlager’s first action and confidently press the Argentinian, because he’s confident that Jair Cunha will step out of the line to put pressure on Wirtz should McAtee fail to disrupt the possession. McAtee does a great job though, and wins another duel a few seconds later as Forest make a nice one touch passing move leading to a decent chance on goal.

The biggest difference between the win in 2024, and the match this past weekend, was the formation. We’ve known for a while that Glasner would be going with a 3-4-2-1 formation at Forest, but he has also spoken consistently about the flexibility within that system - I picked out some examples of this recently from pre-season.

At Anfield, the pressing proactivity we’ve seen from the wing-backs wasn’t really there in the same way. This was very much a back 5, not a back 3 - with the system often looking like a 5-4-1 when Liverpool had controlled possession.

You’ve basically got Ndoye lining up at left midfield and Gibbs-White on the other side - probably a surprise for all of us considering where they both normally play. When Forest force Liverpool backward, they become slightly more proactive.

Schlager & Igor Jesus show a really good connection here, as they rotate between being the man who presses and the man who drops. These are simple actions, but if one doesn’t cover the other, the whole shape is blown open.

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After being heavily linked with Nottingham Forest last season, one year on Liam Delap has joined the club, who just so happen to have a Head Coach that was also interested in him after his 12 goals with relegated Ipswich Town.

With Chris Wood having to look after a knee problem that will remain with him for the rest of his career, and Igor Jesus an unprolific hard worker who is perhaps more suited to a deeper role, Delap joins a club desperately in need of a focal point not only in the coming seasons, but also immediately.

Delap will need to look no further than some other players who have made the move from Big Six clubs to Forest in recent seasons, and then gone on to rebuild their careers either here or elsewhere. Anthony Elanga had two productive seasons before a big money move to Newcastle, Callum Hudson-Odoi has proven he is a Premier League player again after a cut price move from Chelsea, and Neco Williams is one of the few players remaining from Forest’s first Premier League campaign.

The stage is set for Delap to not only rebuild his career at The City Ground, but also to rediscover the form he showed at Ipswich Town and try to force his way in to an England set up full of aging striker options ahead of a ‘home’ Euros.

Delap’s Data & How He’ll Fit

Firstly, it’s important to note that Delap joins a set up with some familiar faces. Counting games from U18 level and above, only Cole Palmer has taken the field with Delap more than Forest’s James McAtee - together they combined for 11 goals in 60 appearances across all competitions & age groups.

He also spent his first Premier League season with Forest’s previous record signing, Omari Hutchinson. Although their partnership wasn’t quite so prolific (just 2 goals assisted by Hutchinson for Delap), they still combined well, with Hutchinson creating 8 total chances for a side that lacked firepower and had to do lots of defending in an ultimately unsuccessful campaign.

But how does he compare to Forest’s existing options, and another player loosely linked with Forest in recent transfer windows in Jean Phillipe Mateta? Let’s have a look and find out.

Mateta, Wood & Delap (including 2 seasons in the Championship) have 4 season’s worth of data to look at. Forest’s other option in Igor Jesus has 2 season’s worth of data - last season at Forest, and the first part of 2025 with Botafogo. This data excludes penalties.

The first thing to notice here is that in general Liam Delap has a low xG per shot compared to these other options. There’s two reasons for this - the first being that in general he has been in sides that have struggled to create too much. Secondly, he is a forward who is more than happy to take a shot from low-quality areas - this is a trait he shares with Igor Jesus, which is something that might worry you, but let’s dispel those worries.

If we look at their conversion rates in league football, we can see that Delap has a higher conversion rate than Igor Jesus’ in each season apart from his most recent one with Chelsea, where he scored just 1 of 36 shots. There’s probably a decent explanation for this though.

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Forest entered into a new era over the weekend full of optimism with Oliver Glasner in the dugout - unfortunately the team weren’t able to reward that optimism with a win, or even a draw. Let’s dig in to what happened within the game, why there’s reasons to be optimistic, but also where the squad still need to adapt to Glasner’s tactical plans.

The Individual Performances

In all honestly, for me I don’t think there were too many players on either side that stood out as fantastic or poor performers. From a Forest point of view, nobody’s game really screamed “keep me in this side”, but at the same time I’m not sure any of the performances screamed “put me on the bench” either.

Using my Player Impact metric, the below video showcases the performances of all the outfielders as the game went on. The data suggests Forest best performers came in both wing-back areas (perhaps due to their significant involvement rather than overall output), James McAtee & the hard-working Igor Jesus.

On the other hand, the two players at the bottom I’d like to concentrate on here are Nikola Milenkovic & Morgan Gibbs-White. In the case of the Serbian, we’re all hoping for a bit of a bounceback season from him after the disappointment of last season, unfortunately he certainly hasn’t started the season in the best way.

Whilst he was able to contribute with some clearances, and also looked fairly dangerous in attack (hitting the post), Milenkovic gave up possession far too cheaply in his own half, gifting lots of set piece opportunities to a side in Leeds who are very strong in that area. The foul for the winning goal in particular is a really poor misjudgement.

For Gibbs-White, this was a game where nothing really seemed to come off for him. We’ve seen these kind of games from him before, and in turn we’ve also seen him come back from performances like Saturday’s fairly quickly, where he’ll contribute well in the next game.

There were however too many occasions where passes that would normally seem relatively simple for a player of Gibbs-White’s calibre, were either being overhit or underhit. This made it really difficult for Forest to use the pace of Dan Ndoye in particular, who made a couple of decent runs but was never found.

Gibbs-White biggest ‘contribution’ in the game though, was arguably his decision to try to anticipate Anton Stach’s winning free-kick in the latter stages of the game…

Anton Stach The Beneficiary of 3 Forest Errors

The first thing to note with the goal is how bad a misjudgement Nikola Milenkovic makes to commit the foul. It’s a bouncing ball and it should be a very easy clearance, but Milenkovic clatters into the man instead, and gives Leeds an opportunity they should never really have had.

It wasn’t necessarily a great opportunity though - of course it’s a little difficult to measure the danger of a free-kick that is not only a shooting opportunity but a crossing one too - but the Expected Goals figure for the shot itself was just a tad over 0.03. In open play, when the ball is in this area, Expected Threat has a value of 0.04 - in layman’s terms, generally the chance of a goal when the ball is in this area is less than 4%.

The next error comes in the wall. I’m of the view that, considering the quality Anton Stach possesses from set pieces, Sels probably should’ve set up a 3-man wall here to protect the goal. Instead, it’s a 2-man wall with Neco Williams & Morgan Gibbs-White.

Colin Sisson, a good friend of mine (and also as it happens a Goalkeeper Coach!), also suggested to me when I asked his opinion on this goal that Sels is perhaps trying to tempt Stach into going for the far post. “The wall looked like it should’ve been three, I think he was trying to tempt the ball across the box that he seemed to be ready for”.

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How many goal contributions will Morgan Gibbs-White get this season?

Last season Gibbs-White became Forest’s main goalscoring threat, changing his role from being the team’s main creator. I’d expect normal service to be resumed this coming season under Glasner – so I can’t see Gibbs-White achieving 15 Premier League goals, but I also can’t see him only registering 4 assists.

The consensus among the fanbase is that Gibbs-White will finish with between 10-15 goals & assists this season, with 46.7% of you feeling that way. Personally, I think he should be targeting 20+ goal involvements, but that he’ll just fall short with a figure somewhere between 16 and 20.

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Who will be Forest’s top scoring striker?

The departure of Taiwo Awoniyi does leave Forest a little short up front, especially considering that Arnaud Kalimuendo is essentially seen as an option in one of the two roles behind the striker. 46.1% believe that Igor Jesus will be Forest’s top scorer this season, with only 11% of you feeling that Chris Wood will top the charts – the rest of you feel Forest’s top goalscorer isn’t currently at the club.

I’m surprised the fanbase is still so low on Chris Wood, although I understand why people are a bit hesitant considering his knee issues last season and the relatively slow start to pre-season too. Without knowing exactly who Forest will bring in up front, I have to agree with the majority here and say I think Igor Jesus will be the team’s top scoring striker.

Who will get the most minutes next to Morgan Gibbs-White?

It looks like there’s one spot in the lineup next to Gibbs-White that at least 4 players are fighting for – Forest fans seem pretty convinced that Dan Ndoye is getting the first shot at this role, with 76.5% of you believing that he’ll get more minutes than Omari Hutchinson, Callum Hudson-Odoi & Arnaud Kalimuendo.

I’m in agreement with this too, I think the shirt is his to lose as he looks to make a far better impact on the field in his second season at the club.

Which midfielder will receive the most yellow cards this season?

This one is a little tougher to predict accurately considering the different amount of game time these guys are going to get, but most of you (38.9%) believe that Ibrahim Sangare will get more yellow cards this season than any of the other usual midfield options.

I find it hard to disagree with that to be honest, his willingness to try and hook his legs around opponents to win back possession can sometimes be slightly mistimed and result in bookings, add that to him being the midfielder with the most game time as long as he’s fit, then it makes sense for him to be the option here.

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Which centre back will score the most goals for Forest this season?

This was easily the closest result of all the questions I asked, with 38.1% of you believing Ousmane Diomande will score the most goals out of the centre backs, and 35.5% of you going with Milenkovic. Forest’s first choice back 3 is set, so it’s no surprise to see just 2% of you thinking the top scorer won’t be those two players or Murillo, who received 24.4% of the vote.

Personally, I’ll be going against the grain slightly – Milenkovic has proven he can score a decent amount at set pieces at this level, so I think it’s most likely he’ll be Forest’s top scorer. In reality, I think if Forest could get 10 goals from all of their centre backs combined I think they’d be absolutely delighted.

How many goals will Forest score in the Premier League?

Only 2.4% of you think that Forest will score less than a goal a game – with 16.3% being very optimistic and thinking Forest will score more than 58 goals. The majority of you (51.4%) think Forest will score somewhere between 49 & 58 goals.

Forest have only broke the 50 goal mark once since promotion, I think that should be the aim for this season so I agree with the majority here.

How many goals will Forest concede in the Premier League?

I was pretty surprised to see 22.8% of you suggest that Forest’s defence will be solid enough to concede less than a goal a game through the season. The majority of you went with conceding between 39 & 48 goals, which I think is fair considering despite all the troubles last season the club only conceded 51 league goals.

I’m going the majority again here, although this would be a pretty decent achievement to fall within this bracket considering even in Forest’s most successful season back in the Premier League when they qualified for Europe, the team conceded 46 goals – if the club can beat that record then I think they’re in for a very positive season.

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Where will Forest finish in the Premier League?

I don’t think there’s any doubt that internally at least, a finishing position within the Top 8 is the aim. 24.5% of you think that’s where the club will end up. Interestingly, only 0.3% of you think Forest will get relegated – far lower than I thought it would be!

Not to be boring, but I’ll be going along with pack again and joining the 57.9% of you that think Forest will finish somewhere between 9^th and 12^th this season. This would represent good progress, and hopefully would come alongside a decent cup run.

Will Oliver Glasner last the season?

There’s no doubting how positive Forest fans are feeling about this appointment, with a whopping 94.6% of you thinking Glasner will get to the end of the season. We all know what that means – for a manager to see out a season at Forest it suggests the season has been a pretty successful one.

There’s still part of me that thinks somehow the club will find a way to halt their own progress, but with the finances involved in bringing Glasner to the club, and the feel good factor around the team at the moment, I think Glasner will last the season as he leads the club to a top half finish.

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My other Premier League predictions:

Purely so you can laugh at me when these are all completely wrong come May, here’s my other general predictions for the league this season.

Champions: Arsenal

Champions League: Man City, Chelsea, Man Utd (& Liverpool 5^th)

Relegation: Fulham, Ipswich & Hull

Bounce Back Season: Nottingham Forest

Struggling Season: Sunderland

Surprise of the Season: Brighton won’t win the Conference League

Top Goalscorer: Erling Haaland 1st, Joao Pedro 2nd

Most Assists: Bruno Fernandes, Morgan Gibbs-White 2nd

Golden Glove: David Raya, Robert Sanchez 2nd

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Goalkeepers

Matz Sels:

An indifferent season for Sels last time out, as he lost his place temporarily to John Victor, and then again to Stefan Ortega, before finishing the season in fine domestic form and convincing Forest to let Ortega leave.

Target: Stay fit through the season, play in all 38 Premier League games, get at least 10 clean sheets.

John Victor:

None of his appearances in a Forest shirt last season inspired any form of confidence within the defence, or the fanbase. It was a surprise to see him picked ahead of Sels, but a moment of madness and an unfortunate injury ended his season in January.

Target: Show consistency and calmness in cup appearances, allow his performances to help us forget about last season’s calamity.

Steven Benda:

Signed to be the classic 3^rd choice goalkeeper, Forest will be hoping that there isn’t a situation where Benda sees first team action this season.

No target set.

Centre Backs

Nikola Milenkovic:

A poor season by his standards last time out, not helped by the constant changing of personnel and systems in Forest’s own half of the field.

Target: We know what he’s capable of – Milenkovic needs to bring back that calm & composed defending, with controlled aggression, to the heart of Forest’s back 3. Should be aiming for at least 5 goal contributions with his ability at set pieces.

Murillo:

It was a stop-start for Murillo who seemed to be constantly battling with muscle injuries – not helped by being brought back too quickly on a couple of occasions, including a ridiculous appearance off the bench at Villa Park in the Europa League Semi Final that ended his season.

Target: Increase his availability to at least 34 games. Be involved in Forest’s build up under Glasner more often, contributing in an attacking sense more than he has before.

Ousmane Diomande:

Forest’s marquee defensive signing, Diomande is likely the starter at RCB on opening day after joining from Sporting. Glasner will be happy to finally get the man he wanted at Crystal Palace last season.

Target: Adjust to English football quickly – a measure of his success will firstly be that he remains the first choice option at RCB for the season. I’d also hope with his size & frame that he can contribute a few goals too.

Jair Cunha:

A debut season where he struggled to find game time in 2025 due to the managerial changes and some questionable squad selections. Jair almost always impressed when played in a centre back role, and is perhaps unfortunate to be a likely starting on the bench.

Target: Make the most of his early season appearances in cups and push Diomande or Milenkovic out of the team. He’ll at least need to be part of a couple of good cup runs to gain regular football.

Morato:

A very polarising figure at the back for Forest, to be fair to Morato he ended the season as Forest’s best centre back over the closing months, but finds himself now as the 5^th choice option.

Target: Like Jair Cunha, impress in the cup competitions. It’s very unlikely that he can oust Murillo from the starting position, but it is likely that Murillo will miss games and Morato will need to be ready to slot in at LCB during those times.

Zach Abbott:

Kept around last season to help with Forest’s hectic fixture schedule, it’s time for Abbott to experience consistent first team football. With Yates reportedly doubtful for the season opener, Abbott will likely stick around a little longer to help keep Forest’s academy record intact, but my hope is he is playing elsewhere in September. I worry that another season without consistent first team action could stunt his growth in the same way Forest did with Omobamidele a couple of seasons ago, and in part with Jair Cunha last season too.

Target: Play a full season of first team football on loan in the EFL, allowing him to come back to the club next season to push for a spot in the squad. If he is to stay in the squad, then he’ll need to work hard to move his way up the pecking order.

Tyler Bindon:

In the end a decent spell at Sheffield Utd, where he found himself out of the team before his own commitment and performances meant Chris Wilder had no choice but to put him back in and keep him there until their play-off hopes diminished.

Target: Like Abbott, it is important for him to continue to experience first team football on loan in the EFL. However, if Forest want to retain 6 centre backs, Bindon is still classed as an U21 player this season, and considering he has had 3 seasons of first team experience with Reading & Sheffield Utd, it’s possible the club keep him around for depth as he won’t take up a senior squad spot.

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Wing Backs

Neco Williams:

Forest’s player of the season last time out, Williams is primed for another big season with Forest in a system that should really suit his abilities at both ends of the field.

Target: Let’s be really optimistic and challenging here, and see if Williams can get up to 10 goal contributions from his wing-back role.

Ola Aina:

Probably the player who has been spoken about the most after Glasner’s appointment, Aina has adjusted well to his more attacking wing back role as the pre-season has gone on.

Target: Fitness is more the worry with Aina, rather than ability. I’d like to see Aina get to at least 30 Premier League starts after last season’s injuries – this would prove both his fitness but also his capabilities in Glasner’s system.

Luca Netz:

Another who improved as the pre-season went on, Netz will find himself on the outside looking in to begin the season.

Target: He may get a start in the Carabao Cup, and it will be important for him to impress. If Forest don’t manage to strengthen in either wing-back position, Netz is the next man up and it’s up to him to prove that he can be a Premier League player when given the opportunity.

Eric da Silva Moreira:

Some very bright moments in pre-season in his attacking wing-back role, but I still have some very big concerns about him without the ball.

Target: It’s time for him (and to be fair, the club) to find a suitable loan destination for him where he can play consistently against senior players and start to work on his defensive skills.

Nicolo Savona:

No first team appearances (publicly anyway) during pre-season, Savona is continually linked with a move away from the club back to Italy. Glasner has stated that he has had a slight set back with his recovery.

Target: If he remains at the club into September, he needs to prove his fitness and make his way back into the match day squads – even then, appearances may be hard to come by. If he can make 5 appearances off the bench by Christmas then that is probably a success for him.

Central Midfielders

Ibrahim Sangare:

Coming off his best season in a Forest shirt, he is probably the first choice midfielder as things stand, and the talk is more about who will partner him.

Target: Last season was affected more by international duty than injury, but it’s important for Sangare to stay available for the whole season and begin to build a strong partnership with whoever Glasner chooses to put along side him.

Xaver Schlager:

The first signing Forest made under Glasner – and one it seems he was heavily involved in – Schlager has had a good pre-season, but is showing some signs that he might struggle to adapt to the pace of the Premier League (as he did at times during the World Cup with Austria).

Target: If he’s fit, I would imagine Schlager will appear in every game either from the start or from the bench. His main target for me would be to have more starts than substitute appearances – this would show that he’s played his way into the side and has adjusted to new surroundings well.

James McAtee:

One of the big winners in pre-season after a tough first campaign with the club, it seems Glasner is really giving a lot of thought into starting McAtee in a deeper midfield role. There’s no concerns on his ability, nor his intelligence – it’s only his physicality that may let him down here.

Target: Prove that he can hang with Premier League midfields by getting consistent minutes in this deeper midfield role – alternatively, force his way in to the starting spot next to Morgan Gibbs-White.

Nicolas Dominguez:

Probably Forest’s most reliable player since he joined the club 3 summers ago, Dominguez has another battle on his hands as Forest have strengthened in his position and McAtee is now a real option.

Target: We really need to start seeing some more attacking contributions from Dominguez – I’d like to see him hit 5 goal contributions through the season.

Ryan Yates:

Forest’s club captain saw the fewest amount of league minutes last season since he broke into the first team squad in 2018. It seems like an injury will keep him out of the opening week of the season.

Target: It’s going to be tough for Yates to get into this side – his target for this upcoming season should be to get more than the 784 minutes of Premier League game time that he managed last season.

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Attacking Midfielders

Morgan Gibbs-White:

Forest’s talisman and chief goalscorer last season, Gibbs-White is another player who is primed for a great season in a system that should suit his game perfectly.

Target: I don’t expect him to get as many goals as last season, but his target should be to surpass 20 goal contributions in the Premier League.

Dan Ndoye:

A disappointing debut season for the Swiss international, who found his form with his country at the World Cup. Ndoye looks set to be Gibbs-White’s partner behind the striker to start the season.

Target: Make the most of this great opportunity and become a consistent starter for Forest – beat his personal record of 12 goal contributions in a top flight season.

Callum Hudson-Odoi:

Coming off a season ended early by injury, it may well be tough for Hudson-Odoi who’s preferred position as a touchline hogging left winger is not really part of Glasner’s system.

Target: Premier League starts may be hard to come by early on, so it’s up to him to make the most of his appearances in cups and off the bench to force himself into the starting lineup by the turn of the year.

Omari Hutchinson:

It looks like his pre-season campaign has been hampered by injury, which has probably moved him down the pecking order slightly.

Target: Like Hudson-Odoi, Hutchinson needs to make the most of cameos off the bench and in cup competitions to try and force his way into this side before the turn of the year.

Arnaud Kalimuendo:

At the time of writing, Kalimuendo is still part of his squad and for me is probably the 2^nd choice to partner Gibbs-White behind Dan Ndoye.

Target: Should he remain at the club, Kalimuendo needs to show that he deserves to be starting ahead of Ndoye, or an alternative target would be to hit 5 goals off the bench.

Dilane Bakwa:

Probably the most likely senior player to leave before the end of the window – Bakwa started pre-season brightly but has fallen down the pecking order to the point where he doesn’t really look interested when he does make it on to the pitch.

Target: No real target set for him at Forest – his main aim should be to find a new home – be that permanent or temporary – to start to rebuild his career.

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The Strikers

Chris Wood:

A knee injury that will have to be monitored for the rest of his career, severely affected Wood & Forest last season. He’s had a couple of niggles this pre-season too, coming back late after a good World Cup with New Zealand.

Target: At this point, I think Igor Jesus is the current starter, and Forest will likely sign another striker. Wood’s target should be to be the starting striker for the club by Christmas on merit – or alternatively have provided good impact off the bench during that time period.

Igor Jesus:

Finally a proper break from football for Igor Jesus this summer, and it seems to have done him the world of good as he’s looked very sharp during pre-season.

Target: For me, he’s the starter on opening day. His target should be to hold on to that shirt, and to fire 10+ league goals this season.

The Head Coach

Oliver Glasner:

There’s no doubt about it, Oliver Glasner has been brought to The City Ground to help the club take the next step and win a trophy. It might not come this year, but a push for a European spot is definitely the club’s aim alongside some cup runs.

Target: There’s only one real target for Glasner – and for any other Forest manager to be fair – still be in charge at the end of the season. If he is, then the club will likely have had a very good campaign.

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Goalkeepers

Matz Sels

A decent pre-season from Forest’s clear Number 1. No mistakes that come to mind, with some decent saves too. Nervousness around Forest’s goalkeeper situation comes only from Sels’ niggling injuries last season, rather than the Belgian’s ability.

John Victor

Looks like he’s going to be given a surprise chance to be Forest’s back up this season - and may even find himself in the starting lineup in the Carabao Cup. The only mistake I remember from John during the pre-season was a poor pass into midfield against Udinese that led to a chance on goal - otherwise there’s been nothing alarming of note and that itself could be deemed ‘progress’.

Steven Benda

Given 45 minutes in Forest’s final pre-season game against Brest during which he had very little to do, it’s unlikely Benda sees any game time this season - if he does than it signals that things have gone very wrong.

Centre Backs

Nikola Milenkovic

Looked a little out of sorts for the goal conceded against Bayer Leverkusen at The City Ground, and was part of an underperforming & tiring backline against Sporting, but the Serbian will have benefitted from spending time in this new role for him this season in the middle of the back 3.

Murillo

One of a few players who’s pre-season was disrupted by injury, Murillo made his return against Barcelona and probably looked the best out of all those late returners to the lineup.

Ousmane Diomande

Only 45 minutes of public viewing to judge him on - he’ll take a bit more time than the others to adjust to his responsibilities and timings to jump out of the line, but he looked confident against Leverkusen.

Jair Cunha

Arguably the best performing centre back for Forest in pre-season, despite being asked to fill in across the back 3 as Glasner chopped and changed personnel. He’ll be first in line if and when there’s injuries or suspension.

Morato

No real clangers dropped from Morato during pre-season from memory, but nothing from him that moves him up the pecking order either. He probably finished last season as Forest’s most in-form centre back, but he’ll struggle to find the opportunitity to show that form this coming season.

Zach Abbott

Playing as one of the wider centre backs until the final pre-season game, I felt Abbott was probably the best of the wider options at trying to carry out Glasner’s instructions. Unfortunately, despite being brave and doing the right thing, he often wasn’t able to complete the necessary actions. Glasner has regularly mentioned he wants his younger players to show this kind of bravery though, and I think Abbott will have impressed the Austrian.

Tyler Bindon

There was probably an opportunity for Bindon to move from 6th choice CB to 5th choice at the start of pre-season, but the signing of Diomande & Abbott’s slightly better overall impression meant Bindon remains bottom of the pack. Not involved in most of the latter pre-season games, Bindon was given the closing stages against Brest and looked pretty composed and solid.

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Wing Backs

Neco Williams

Glasner’s system suits Neco down to the ground, perhaps even more so if he was able to play on the right wing. He’s come back after the summer break in fine shape - a break Glasner & Williams agreed to cut short -and regularly got himself involved in both thirds. This is exactly what the Head Coach will have been asking for.

Ola Aina

Aina’s place in this team has been the subject of a lot of talk - the pre-season started with Glasner continually shouting instructions to him far more than most other players. To his credit, Aina has gradually adjusted to the Austrian’s demands, and toward the end of pre-season looked like he really understood what was being asked of him.

Luca Netz

Like Aina, I think he’s another player who has really adjusted well in the final couple of weeks of pre-season. He also was the subject of plenty of touchline instructions, and some of his set piece defending left a lot to be desired. Netz had his strongest pre-season game by a mile against Brest though, getting forward really well, adding to his assist in the Leverkusen game with a penalty-win and his first goal in a Forest shirt.

Eric da Silva Moreira

I’ve long said that I dont’ think the young German has a long term future of the club - but to be completely fair to him, some of his performances during this pre-season have been very encouraging. I still think though, despite being a dangerous attacking threat, he still has far too many defensive deficiencies in his game. These are present regardless of where he is, be that box defending, defending 1 v 1, or pressing at the right angles.

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Central Midfielders

Ibrahim Sangare

Despite coming back slightly later than most of the first-team squad, Sangare has slotted in quite well in midfield during pre-season. His role will be slightly different to the midfielders that Glasner has had at his disposal previously, but his performances mean the question for the opening day is around who starts next to him, rather than whether he would be involved himself.

James McAtee

Easily the biggest surprise of pre-season, McAtee made his first appearance in a deeper role against Notts County, and continued to impress there throughout pre-season. He’s definitely bulked up a little, something he certainly needs if he is to have a future in the Premier League in a deeper role - he’s not quite answered the questions to that part of his game, but has given Glasner plenty to think about. This added versatility he’s shown can only aid his attempts for more playing time this season.

Nicolas Dominguez

Handed the ‘8’ shirt, Dominguez has looked pretty good during pre-season as he looks to grab one of the starting spots in the team. I’m not quite sure he’s done enough to do that, but I think Glasner will still see him as a very valuable member of the squad. His willingness to press in all phases will be helped by having proactive wider centre backs behind him, and that has shown up many times in these pre-season games.

Xaver Schlager

Forest’s first signing under Oliver Glasner has looked fairly good for the most part, and at one point in these last few weeks I thought he was a definite starter to begin the season. The emergence of McAtee has made that more difficult to predict - although the Austrian definitely has the physicality to succeed in the Premier League, I think he’s shown on a few occasions during this pre-season that he sometimes feels he has more time on the ball than he actually has - it’s something I noted when watching his appearance against Spain in the World Cup too. It’s something he’ll need to adjust to quickly, or he’ll create some dangerous turnovers for the opponent.

Ryan Yates

Coming off a season where Yates was clearly not involved as much as he would’ve hoped, it feels like this has been quite a disrupted pre-season for him. Reading between the lines, Yates hasn’t been involved in a few of the pre-season games, and in recent matches has been slotted in as the central centre back. Glasner has confirmed Yates may miss the opening day due to a slight issue, which won’t make his quest for more minutes any easier. In those early games, Yates was often being told to get ‘higher’ by Glasner - although this mostly came because it looked like Yates didn’t have the trust in his CB behind him to cover the space.

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Attacking Midfielders

Morgan Gibbs-White

This time last year, Gibbs-White had finished a pretty difficult pre-season for him and the club. This lead to some poor form by his standards through the opening weeks - this time around though, the man who will wear the armband on opening day has been one of Forest’s best performers. That can only bode well for the start of the season.

Dan Ndoye

The last player to return to pre-season training following a successful World Cup, Ndoye missed the entire camp in Portugal. It looked like he had been working hard during his short time off though, as he looked pretty lively against Barcelona, and scored a nice goal against Leverkusen too. It’s a make-or-break season for Ndoye in English football, but he’s definitely got through pre-season well and will feel pretty optimistic about his game.

Arnaud Kalimuendo

Rumours continue to swirl about an impending departure for Kalimuendo, but with Taiwo Awoniyi set to leave the club, I’d imagine the only scenario where he can leave to is where Forest have strengthened first. Kalimuendo has looked fairly bright in pre-season, notching a couple of goals from a second-striker role. He and Ndoye represent the only real pacy options in Forest’s attacking third, and he’s definitely shown enough to be given the chance to stick around and fight for the spot next to Gibbs-White in the lineup.

Callum Hudson-Odoi

Injury finished his season early last time out, and has disrupted his pre-season too. He looked very rusty in Italy against Udinese - but we must remember that is always going to be the case when he’s almost a month behind every other player on the pitch. In the games at The City Ground - particularly against Brest - he looked far better, as he adjusts to a role that requires a narrower starting position.

Omari Hutchinson

Pre season started well for Hutchinson, being involved in the ‘first’ team against Notts County back in July. It looks like he has been hampered by injury ever since, which is a real shame for him. A first public sighting in a while against Brest was a positive one, but through little fault of his own he’s probably near the bottom of the pecking order.

Dilane Bakwa

Another who’s pre-season started well - he was arguably Forest’s best player against Notts County. Something seems to have changed since them, and I can only speculate that Glasner hasn’t been impressed with him during training sessions. He’s been left out completely of some pre-season games, and only played against Udinese due to slight injuries in the warm up to both Wood & Awoniyi. His poor pre-season was compounded by his weird decision to halt a counter attack late on against Brest as he slowed down to walking pace - Glasner didn’t look impressed and I think that might be the last we see of him in a Forest shirt.

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Strikers

Igor Jesus

A first ‘proper’ break for the Brazilian in over 18 months looks to have done him the world of good. He has shown a real eye for goal in the early stages of pre-season, both from the striker position and from a slightly deeper role. For me, he’s played his way into the lineup on opening day with his form, aided slightly by concerns on Chris Wood’s match fitness.

Chris Wood

Many seemed to write Chris Wood off after a poor first game of pre-season against Sporting - for me this was incredibly unfair considering he had just joined up with the squad after an extended post-World Cup break. Typically, he then felt his quad before the Udinese game and didn’t play as a precaution, but this only fuelled those who had written him off. Wood returned to the starting lineup against Brest and looked pretty good, getting into some good positions, pressing well and scoring a penalty. We won’t see 2024/25 Chris Wood again, but he’ll still have a big part to play this coming season.

Taiwo Awoniyi

Forest’s Number 9 returned to pre-season training looking very fit and hungry, but of course there wouldn’t be optimism around Taiwo without a slight injury worry when a groin issue prevented him from appearing against Udinese. He returned only a few days later against Leverkusen, and then the news broke that he’ll be making the move to Coventry. It will be great to see Awoniyi get a real opportunity for consistent game time, he’s a player who’s given many of us some of the greatest Forest memories in recent times, and I think we all want him to succeed in 36 of Coventry’s 38 games.

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Yes, the deal for Ousmane Diomande has taken far longer than anybody would’ve hoped, but judging by what feels like a real drop in transfer rumours compared to last summer, it feels as though the everybody at the club are on the same page - you could even say that filters across the whole of the Marinakis Football Group.

But I do think we’ve seen some good examples of Glasner’s tactical ideas being implemented by the players. At this point, I think Glasner will be pretty happy with how the squad have adapted to different roles - this last month is not the part of the season where the final action is important, it’s more about making sure players are putting themselves in the position to have those actions.

Not Just A Back 5

As soon as Glasner’s name was mentioned as the man to take over from Vitor Pereira, plenty of us started discussing his favoured system of a back 5, and whether it would necessarily fit with the existing playing squad.

In our own half at least, I’ve always been of the view that 1) yes it does, and 2) even if it doesn’t, Glasner is going to go with this system to begin with anyway.

There’s always been a lot of talk among all football fans around the pros and cons of a back 5 - and I think sometimes Glasner get’s unfairly tarnished with the idea that he is stubborn and can only coach one system. In fact, those of you that read my Oliver Glasner Deep Dives (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4), will know that he has in fact coached both back 5 & back 4 systems with great success throughout his career.

We’re still at the very early stage of his hopefully long tenure, but already there’s evidence of how flexible Glasner’s initial shape really is. There were plenty of examples of this on show in Italy over the weekend - and I’ve picked out a couple of clips from the game against Barcelona, where Forest started with what is likely closest to their first choice 11 at this stage.

In around 40 seconds of play, Forest essentially change shape on no fewer than 7 occasions. I’m not trying to suggest that this is some form of wizardry from Glasner, but more pointing out how flexible this system can be, and the demands that the Austrian is placing on his players.

What makes this so difficult for the defenders in particular, is the vareity of different positions they have to be comforable in, even just for a few seconds. When the ball is on Forest’s right, Aina will push out, Jair Cunha will shuffle across to RB, and Williams will drop back to LB - this happens on the other side too with Murillo moving over to LB.

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A random question on your player impact model - do all bookings get assessed the same way? Do some have a positive and others a negative impact on player’s assessed performance?

In short, yes all bookings and red cards do get assessed in the same way. The question is entirely legitimate though as there are obviously some fouls and cards that are essentially good decisions to stop promising attacks.

Unfortunately, without tracking data (which is not publicly available and very expensive to get access to), it is very difficult (at least in my opinion) to measure the positive or negative impact associated with a booking in an accurate enough way.

I could assign different values depending on what has happened directly before a yellow card (i.e. has the opposition just created a turnover and therefore beginning a counter attack), but when all I have to hand is the location of the events without the very important context of where players are located, what passing angles are on offer at the time of the foul and whether players are running into space or not, I don’t think I can accurately ‘grade’ a foul or yellow card.

I am continually tweaking the Player Impact Model as time goes by, as I gradually introduce new metrics or player measures that I think can help compliment the eye test with performance based on data. A couple of years ago I wrote a more in depth piece on it for the great guys at the Analysts Bar - you can read more about that here.

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I am interested in your scouting processes,particularly on how you use data to make decisions.

I could go on forever about how I use my data to identify players and make decisions, but I’ll try to cut it down into smaller stages.

1. Identify exactly what I’m looking for

Let’s take a more recent example and think about Elliot Anderson leaving Forest - I wrote a few pieces on some potential targets, but in order to get to that point I needed to initially work out exactly what I was looking for.

In this case, I felt Forest would most likely be looking at players who hit the following criteria:

• At least one season of full playing experience in a top European league

• An age where Forest could reasonably expect a good resale value after the initial investment (I looked mostly for under 25s)

• Have a data profile that covers at least one of Anderson’s key strengths - mainly ball-winning and progression.

There’s more that goes in to that stage, but that will give you an initial idea of how I’d get to a very long list of players.

2. Remove players who are unrealistic targets

This would mainly compromise of a player hitting a red flag - usually either a player that would cost a significant amount of money to prize them away (think Alex Scott at Bournemouth), or a player who has very recently signed a new contract with their club.

Other things may come in to play too - perhaps other ‘bigger’ teams have already shown an interest that would make the chances of Forest getting involved very slim, or perhaps that team has no pressure to sell because they’ve already made a big sale (like Forest themselves), or because they’ve qualified for the Champions League and would likely want to play in that competition.

3. Look deeper into the overall data profile & player history

This could be included in the 2nd stage really, but it is just the way I do things in general. Now I’d be looking at a player’s history - are they injured often? If so, is that because they’ve had a couple of big injuries, or do they just constantly miss games because of knocks and sprains.

I’d also be looking at a midfielder’s possession profile alongside their defensive one. For example, it’s great if a player is a turnover machine, but not too useful if they struggle to keep possession after regaining it. On the other side of the ball, it’s great if a player is a real goal threat, but are their defensive numbers at least passable? If not, is that because they’re playing for a team that doesn’t do much defending, or is it because they just don’t get involved?

Those are two reasons why I’d discount a player in this scenario - with the added context of what team they’re playing for and what their opposition looks like.

4. Look into action areas - are these targets used to operating in similar areas of the field?

This would usually be the last part of my process when it comes to filtering out with the data, as I’ll now start to also look at some clips if possible. I gave an example recently on X where I spoke about the similar data profiles of Nico Dominguez & Joelinton.

This was off the back of a question around comparing players in a midfield 2 and a midfield 3. Pretend you don’t know anything about these two players, and that you’ve never watched them before. The data tells us that they operate in similar areas of the field despite playing in different systems.

This would suggest initially at least that if Forest were trying to replace Dominguez, that Joelinton might be a good fit. We of course know that they are not really the same player, but the data work would probably have Joelinton in the final list.

It’s a great example of why I keep banging the drum around data not giving us the full picture, and why before giving my full opinion on a player that Forest are linked with I like to make sure I’ve watched them play a bit first. You’ll see the difference in my posts because I’ll normally call them Scout Reports when my analysis includes watching footage of them.

5. With my final list, use the eye test to remove players that don’t fit

Although this isn’t part of the data process, it’s important just to note that there’s a final stage after I’ve gone through the data before I’ll make a decision on whether to include a player in my final iteration of a short list.

In my most recent posts around Elliot Anderson replacements, there were a combination of players who I’d looked at after they popped up in the data, with some others that I’d included after a bit of viewing too.

As I mentioned above, I do think it’s important to be clear when speaking about players and separate out both opinions - it’s one of the reasons why I and many other people working in and around the game don’t like the very simplistic visuals you’ll see from accounts like Data MB, that are essentially just radar charts with no added context whatsoever. They can be very misleading and give a wrong impression about a player very easily.

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What’s been the biggest change in using data since you started?

My journey in football data is around 3 years old now - and there’s lots of things that have changed in that time period - mostly for the better, but on occassion for the worst.

Focussing on the bad initially, it can be very difficult to get hold of football data from reliable sources at reasonable cost. Wyscout was my primary source of data, and even back then it was over £400 a year just for data access.

It’s coverage was and still is unrivalled, they pretty much have every league in the world (Men’s & Women’s), with history going back around 10 seasons. The platform is fairly easy to use and navigate, however they are a business and they know they have a control on the market.

Because of this, they’ve increased prices dramatically in recent years, to the point where last summer I made the difficult decision to stop renewing my subscription, as from memory they were asking for over £700 for the same access I had in the previous year.

Other publicly available sites - particuarly FB Ref - were great sources but it seems lost the licences to provide that on their website. It still exists on other sites, but FB Ref easily had the best free online platform for many leagues across the world.

On the other hand though, there are so many great free resources that people have created to try and fill the gaps. Some of them you will require a little bit of coding knowledge to make the most of them, others (like my Player Data Dashboard) are tools that can be used by anybody on a laptop or mobile phone.

The online football analytics community is almost always a very helpful and useful one to engage in, there’s lots of people who share ideas and knowledge to help others grow and create new things.

There’s been some great advancements in dashboards in recent years too, including Twelve Football’s Earpiece app, and a couple of Ben Griffis’ apps too for player data and match reports. These are all free to use, and there’s plenty of other innovative ones out there too if you look for them.

Away from dashboards, as time goes on there’s more and more interesting and useful metrics being created. Just using my own work as an example, I’ve redone a lot of my code to include data splits by game state, to include possession chains, or even something as simple as the most common location for actions.

Almost everything someone creates in the football analysis space is off the back of someone else’s idea - this isn’t a bad thing as often this is taking a great piece of work to another level. It seems to me like the work being done by clubs & individuals is enhancing all the time, and it can sometimes be a bit of a trouble to keep up!

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Do you feel that certain attributes/data metrics are becoming more important for clubs when scouting, considering how the game is evolving?

I think this is definitely the case, but the specific attributes and metrics will be different for every club, and even for agencies who use data heavily to try and attract clients for them to represent.

I’d wager that most clubs in the Premier League & Championship will now have a data science department, clubs are taking the value of data in football far more seriously than they ever used to - in part due to the success of teams like Brentford & Brighton in recent seasons.

With virtually every league in the world covered by data providers these days, I don’t think there would be a player who joins a Championship or Premier League club this summer where a team like Forest won’t at least be aware of them.

It would be wrong of me to speak and speculate on specific attributes and metrics - but it is almost a certainty that most clubs in the Premier League will be creating their own in-house metrics to evaluate players, even if the original data source may well be the same.

What I find most interesting about the availability of data for worldwide leagues, is how English clubs are using the foreign markets in many different ways. You can read more about that on the GBE Expert Hub, where Andy gives a great overview on who might or might not be eligible to make a move to England, and what they would need to accomplish to change that.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned working directly with clubs?

There’s obviously a limit to what I can share here, but I can give an overview of my experiences over the past year or so. There is an incredible amount of planning that goes into each transfer window, never mind each signing,

All clubs will work in different ways, and some of them will get a lot of stick for a lack of business (just as Forest are this summer), but a lot of the hard work around identifying a list of players for different positions will already have been done.

When Forest were first linked with Ousmane Diomande a couple of weeks ago, it was mentioned in the report that they had been tracking him for some time. Sometimes we read that in just think “yeah of course they were” and not really believe it - but the reality is this is most likely true, because Forest will have been (and still will be) tracking a whole host of centre back options - Diomande will just happen to be pretty high in that long list.

In fact, with the club’s resources not just at the Nigel Doughty Academy but also in at Rio Ave & Olympiacos, Forest will have a long list for every single position, and they’ll keep tabs on those players for long periods of time so that they’re aware of potential options.

For me, my biggest learnings have come from remembering how important all the work scouts do is - regardless of the outcome. It is just as important for a scout to say ‘no this player is not for us’, as it is to say ‘I think we should look at this guy’.

As an aspiring analyst what puts a candidate to the front of the line when hiring for an actual role at a club?

The first thing I’d recommend for anybody interested in getting into a career in football, is to create some form of social media presence. The work social media companies to to create algorithms so users see things that resonate with them, is very much your friend in this situation.

Before you do that though, you should decide upon what you want your niche to be - what are you going to do that separates you out from the crowd. For me, I initially focussed on Forest as well as Notts County & Mansfield Town, all teams I knew fairly well, and being local I had a decent feel for their strenghts & weaknesses too.

I would produce short pieces on potential targets for all 3 clubs - I’d post visuals on performances in individual matches. Over time I built a small following where people would come to me for opinions on all 3 clubs.

This gradually got me noticed by players, clubs & agencies. I was fortunate enough to do some small pieces of data work for individuals, giving me some important experience.

During this initial period, I continued to improve my coding skills - something that I think at the time was essential to continue improving my work - now it is far easier as you can ask AI for help on the code very quickly.

I then decided after a season to focus solely on Forest - dedicating all of my time and energy in this space to the club. I was then fortunate enough to be invited to The Recruitment Room ran by Liam Henshaw, a community of people who all want to work in the game and have varying experience in doing so.

It was in that community - which is full of mentors and people who work at clubs - where I came across the opportunity to work for Barrow, and then later for Motherwell. I was fortunate in this regard to be in the right place at the right time, but also believe I worked really hard to get into that position to be fortunate.

For me, being a consistent presence in your area of expertise will get you noticed. When applying for jobs, you’ll often be given tasks to perform to assess your suitability - don’t be afraid to ask around for help, don’t be afraid to make connections and ask questions. Football is a very hard business to get in to, and just like me you’ll likely get knocked back on many occassions.

In general I have always believed that good things do come to those that deserve them - for sure though when it comes to working in football it will take longer for some than it does for others. My best advice is to keep going, keep improving and keep producing informative work that will get noticed by someone who just might be able to give you an opportunity.

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Hi Will, I’d be it interested to understand more about the tactical traits and characteristics that have underpinned Glanser’s previous teams. He seems to get simplistically stereotyped as ‘three at the back, aggressive RWB etc’ but he’s said multiple times already that the formation morphs in the game, and it’s his underlying principles that are fundamental and consistent. What are these?

This is pretty difficult question to answer in only a couple of paragraphs, but I’ll try to use an example from the last pre-season friendly. It looks as though Glasner is going to try and be a little more proactive than how is Palace side was – because of that not only are the wing-backs going to be asked to get through plenty of work, it requires some real intelligence from the wide centre backs too.

What we see as a 3-4-2-1, will at times out of possession look more like 4-3-2-1, a 3-4-3 or even what could be classed as 2-5-3. It really depends on how the opponent is building up and even more importantly where they’re positioning their forward line.

In this example, Forest start with Williams high ready to press the left back, whilst Aina is deeper with the right winger – this is pretty close to a 4-3-2-1, with Abbott narrow but covering Forest’s right flank.

As Sporting progress the ball to the right, and then into their central midfielders, Forest’s own central midfield push, so Abbott needs to push up as well to close down Sporting’s left winger, allowing Williams to stay covering the left back.

Of course this is fairly brave, and if the central midfielder isn’t pressed quickly enough by McAtee in this instance, he’ll be able to turn and play a ball into the space Abbott vacates, giving Milenkovic a tough foot race with the centre forward.

What Glasner is going to demand from his side without the ball is an intelligence that at times Vitor Pereira asked for, but one that this Forest side probably aren’t used to. It’s why the club are seemingly so focussed on Ousmane Diomande, and also why I think Xaver Schlager is a decent bet to be heavily involved in the early stages of the season.

Against Sporting, Forest came up against a back 4, in other games they’ll be facing different formations & different build ups that will require a slightly different plan, and of course many teams at Premier League level will be making their own adjustments during the match that Glasner (and more importantly the players) will need to respond to on the fly.

When Glasner spoke a few weeks ago about non-negotiables, he mentioned that it was a complete requirement that players played for the team, and not for themselves. He also wants players to be willing to make mistakes, rather than playing safe. Under Glasner, players are going to find themselves covering areas that you wouldn’t normally associate with them.

Playing safe in this scenario would be Abbott sitting back, and allowing an easy pass into the inverted left winger - so it was really good to see Abbott put himself into some areas that were probably uncomfortable for him.

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For the times when Neco Williams has been deployed down the right, does he improve any better (or worse) compared to his usual deployment down the left?

This is a really interesting question and discussion point - like many I was of the view that Forest would look to recruit a true left-wing back option to allow Neco to move across to the right, where it would seem he’s a perfect fit for what Glasner will want (or at least easily the best fit in the existing squad).

It seems however that the club are comfortable with Williams at left wing back, as they are continually linked to right wing back options. During his time at Forest, Neco has played just under 10,000 Premier League minutes. His share on each wing is pretty similar, with 45% on the right and 55% on the left.

Interestingly, only 3 of his 11 goal involvements have come from when he has been playing on the right. This could suggest that he’s a better performer on the left, but we have to add the context that

• Forest have been a very left-side heavy attacking side in the last 3 seasons, and;

• Williams has undoubtedly improved as a player during this time where he’s been more regularly used on the left.

In a small sample size of just over 500 minutes at right back last season, compared to over 2,500 at left back, there are some interesting things to look at.

As a right back (red in the above visual), Neco’s slices are mostly larger - meaning he is performing far better against his peers when he’s at right back in a number of key metrics - including almost all the defensive ones, and all of his creative ones too.

Going back to the original question though, and looking at how Forest have performed with him in the difference positions, Neco had an overall negative impact on Forest’s xG Difference when he played at right back, compared to a positive impact when he was on the left.

We can again add further context, where most of his right back minutes were at the early parts of the season when Forest really struggled, but it does suggest that perhaps he’s more comfortable attacking on the right, meaning he was leaving the team a little more open defensively - for example he had the lowest amount of Threat Prevented of all eligible right backs.

You can see from his action areas, that Williams generally was defending higher up the pitch on the right than he was on the left. Pass reception locations remain largely the same, whereas his attacking actions are in more dangerous areas when he’s inverting in the final third from the left.

For me though, I still believe to get the best out of him & the team this season, Forest really need some natural balance on the left. It will be interesting to see if Luca Netz is given a chance in the “first” team in the last few pre-season friendlies, or if Aina gets given more time on the left because ideally I’d like to see Williams start on the right flank.

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If Glasner continues to plays McAtee as an 8, is this a viable long term option in his system? Does he profile in a similar way to Wharton, neither seem to be the most physical?

James McAtee is clearly the most interesting player so far this pre-season, he’s made a really good impression in all of his appearances, and visually looks to have bulked up a little bit over the summer too.

From purely a data perspective, it’s really hard to compare McAtee with Wharton, as they’ve mostly played in completely different positions (never mind systems) in recent seasons.

The fairest thing I can do really is look at the small amount of time McAtee played as a defensive midfielder at Sheffield United in 2023/24, in the same system that Glasner played a debuting Adam Wharton in the same system.

The possession metrics, whilst not quite going hand in hand, do have some similarities. It’s in the defensive area though where things are dramatically different - this is quite a shock considering the amount of defending Sheffield United had to do in that season where they were relegated.

The result though probably isn’t so much of a shock, it matches with the overall feeling on McAtee in that the defensive part of his game is his main weakness.

Personally, I don’t doubt McAtee’s willingness to engage and work hard for the team out of possession, that is something you simply have to do to come through Man City’s academy system and play for Guardiola, it’s something you have to do to be given the armband for England U21s.

What I do question though, is his ability to engage & succeed consistently in physical battles. He isn’t blessed with size (neither weight or height), and I worry that he will be dominated too easily by physical midfields.

The question about him having the ability to play a deeper role reminds me of Elliot Anderson’s arrival two summers ago, albeit in a slightly different way. I had concerns on whether Anderson would be able to play for Forest in a midfield two - mainly because he’d never done it before and it is a huge ask to transition into that role as a young player.

Now as we know, I (and many others) were very wrong on this. Anderson very quickly matured into one of the best central midfielders in Europe. He was able to engage in and consistently win physical battles - this is the only part of the game I can’t see McAtee doing on a consistent basis.

Of course there’s every chance I’ll be wrong again, and I truly hope that I am, but for me I don’t see McAtee as a viable long-term option in a deeper midfield role in this system. There will be moments where this will be useful though - when chasing games, or opportunities in home games against midfields that lack physicality. If there’s no further additions to the squad in midfield though, my money would be on Dominguez or Schlager partnering Sangare on opening day.

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Morgan Gibbs-White will start, but who do you think suits the other 10 role best? Ndoye, Omari, CHO, McAtee, or even Igor?

This is a very tough question - and a lot of this depends on whether Glasner feels McAtee is capable of starting in one of those deeper midfield roles. We’re only just over half-way through pre-season, but right not I think would be very difficult to leave James McAtee or Igor Jesus out of the starting lineup on opening day.

A lot will also depend on the fitness and form of Chris Wood - if the New Zealander can find his feet after an extended break, then he will be favourite for the starting spot up front. Igor Jesus’ form in pre-season and at the end of last season can’t be ignored and he’d probably be the one next to Gibbs-White in that scenario.

Ndoye is reportedly returning to training this week, Hudson-Odoi hasn’t made an appearance yet in pre-season, and Hutchinson looks to have been ‘demoted’ to the second string following the return of Wood. The person asking the question doesn’t mention Dilane Bakwa or Arnaud Kalimuendo, both of whom have had decent cameos in their short appearances.

Some people are of the view that we’ll see more rotation from Oliver Glasner than Palace fans saw last season - I’m not too sure about that to be honest, but I think the spot next to Gibbs-White is the one that we may see rotate the most, purely becase Forest’s options (if they all remain) all have slightly different skill sets.

If Forest aren’t expecting much possession, perhaps you want Ndoye there as the paciest option in the squad, or Kalimuendo who can really threaten in behind. If you’re up against a back 3, perhaps you want Hutchinson or Bakwa to try and isolate the left-sided centre back. If you’re up against a team where you’re going to have a lot of the ball, perhaps you’re going to want the close control and creativity of McAtee or Hudson-Odoi.

If Glasner doesn’t want to change too much in the final third, perhaps he tries to keep the successful partnership of Wood, Gibbs-White & Igor Jesus that ended the season and guided Forest to safety.

This position is probably the most interesting spot to keep an eye on through the rest of pre-season and in those early weeks. Right now I’d be banking on the trio that ended last season to be starting against Leeds.

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What other players (that aren’t on £100k) have a similar profile to Delap?

Delap is a player I hoped Forest targetted last summer with a view to him being the long-term successor to Chris Wood. £30m I thought represented really good value for a young, English player who had hit double figures in a poor side.

Unfortunately, Forest were never going to be able to compete financially with Chelsea - although I’d wager that Delap from a footballing standpoint probably regrets that he made the decision to go to London, even if he did become a World Champion in his first few days at the club!

I still think he’d be a good option for Forest if they were perhaps able to do a loan with an conditional obligation to buy - I can’t imagine Chelsea will be able to seriously demand a figure higher than what they paid for him after his disappointing season, so although it sounds like a lot of money, £30m would still represent good value for me, especially considering the club’s reputation in ‘restoring’ young players who have struggled at bigger clubs.

But the question is around who else might be available with a similar profile, so using my Player Comparison Model (that takes into account playing style - not ability), here’s a couple of options.

Conrad Harder - 21- RB Leipzig

Just 3 goals & 3 assists in 29 appearances doesn’t look like the best return, but in reality, Harder had a really decent debut season for Leipzig, starting only 8 games and playing in less than 1,000 league minutes. Signed from Sporting for a reported €24m last summer, Forest would likely need to be reaching a number similar to Delap’s valuation to do business with a team that will soon be receiving an Elliot Anderson-like fee for Yan Diomande.

A player with experience in a footballing system similar to that of Oliver Glasner’s own coaching experience wouldn’t be the worst bet in the world if Forest wanted to refresh their forward options, but before they could realistically try and attempt a signing like this, the likes of Kalimuendo & Awoniyi would likely need to find new clubs.

Dzenan Pejcinovic - 21 - Wolfsburg

Pejcinovic represents a really interesting option, having had a very similar season for Wolfsburg as Delap did for Ipswich. A year younger than Delap was during his relegation season, Pejcinovic scored 8 goals in 30 appearances (16 starts), representing a goal around every 180 minutes of playing time.

Now facing up to reality of life in the 2. Bundesliga, Wolfsburg may have to see some players leave the club as they’ve already got a net spend of +€20m, very unusual in a post-relegation summer. Pejcinovic offered very little from a creative stand point, but would give Forest a different option up front. He’ll be well known to George Syrianos with Glasner himself likely having some contacts he can depend upon for a reference too.

Wilson Isidor - 25- Sunderland

Haiti international Wilson Isidor is a player Forest reportedly showed an interest in during the January transfer window. He struggled for game time for Sunderland once Brian Brobbey found his form, but still was able to contribute 6 goals in less than 1,200 minutes, a very good return.

Fresh from scoring one of the best goals at the World Cup, I’d imagine Isidor is in a bit of a tough spot at Sunderland. He’ll probably want to move on to get more regular football, but with European football now part of the calendar for the Black Cats, he may see a route to more minutes by staying put, depending on the business Sunderland do during the remainder of the window.

From a Forest point of view, Isidor would provide good depth and probably wouldn’t cost a huge amount in comparison to the other options mentioned here - but I’m not sure why he’d agree to move clubs just to play second or third fiddle somewhere else.

Thanks to everyone for their questions - part 2 of this Q&A will follow later this week, covering questions around data & scouting within football.

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For a price of anywhere between £30-£40m (depending on where you read and who you trust), it would seem Diomande would be almost a lock for the RCB spot in Oliver Glasner’s back 3.

Over the last 3 seasons, Diomande has played over 6,100 minutes in the Portuguese top flight, with that playing time fairly evenly split between playing in a back 3 and in a centre back pairing.

Most recently, Diomande was on the right of a centre back pair alongside Gonçalo Inácio, but in previous seasons was used both on the right and in the centre of a back 3.

Diomande’s data profile remains failry similar throughout these past three seasons. You’ll notice that he has some fairly low defensive action numbers - this must be used alongside the context of playing in one of the strongest sides in the division - he just hasn’t had to do as much defending as others, so the numbers are almost artificially low.

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It is perhaps interesting to see that despite the low volume of defensive actions throughout these 3 seasons, Diomande’s ranking for Threat Prevented has continued to increase year on year - this shows that when he is being asked to defend, he’s doing it in fairly high danger areas. Couple this with a tackle success rate better than any other Centre Back in the Portuguese top flight last season, and it would seem like Forest are getting their hands on a very strong option.

It’s also good to note his performance in the xG Build Up metric (measuring how often a player is involved in passing moves that lead to chances at goal) - this dropped in the 2024/25 season as he was mostly used as the central centre back in a 3. But when he was predominantly used on the right of a back 3 (like he probably will be at Forest), he was one of the most heavily involved defenders in the league.

For a bit of added context - we can also look at his data from the Champions League last season. Diomande played over 600 minutes during Sporting’s run to the Champions League Quarter Finals where they were knocked out by Arsenal.

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Whilst I don’t think this transfer signals that the club have handed Glasner the keys to the recruitment this summer, it’s a clear sign that he is heavily involved in the discussions - something that Nuno Espirito Santo made some noises about around this time last year.

Schlager, 28, represents a slight change in direction when it comes to permanent transfers from Forest. He’ll be the oldest outfield permanent signing since Chris Wood in the summer of 2023 - but he’ll arrive with significant experience under the new Head Coach.

After a busy summer starting all 4 games for Austria at this summer’s World Cup, Schlager will now make his first foray into English football.

What Type of Player Have Forest Signed?

Schlager arrives as an experienced midfielder, with almost 400 senior appearances across 4 different clubs and his nation. He has played in multiple different midfield roles, and in different systems too. As touched on above, perhaps most importantly he played under Oliver Glasner for his first 2 seasons at Wolfsburg.

Schlager was one of the first signings Wolfsburg made after Glasner took over at the club - although it is unclear how involved Glasner was in the deal, it certainly would make sense that this was “his” idea.

During his time in charge at LASK, Glasner came up against Schlager on 11 different occasions across 4 seasons, where he registered 4 assists. Despite LASK’s success in that period under Glasner, Schlager was on the losing side just twice, winning 6 of the meetings.

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We can see during Schlager’s 4 seasons at Leipzig he has a lot of experience in virtually every central midfield role. He’s played in midfield twos, midfield threes, as one of two holding midfielders, and even as the right-sided 10.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that there’s no visual above for the 2024/25 season. This is because Schlager missed virtually all of it due to his 2nd ACL injury of his career in May 2024, causing him to miss EURO 2024 - his return was delayed after a scan showed fluid around the knee and he managed only around 200 minutes that season.

That injury meant he’d now ruptured his ACL in both legs during his career. There’s no getting away from it, this is a worry from a Forest perspective. According to TransferMarkt, Schlager has missed 849 days with injuries during his career - totalling 147 games. On a more positive note however, he only missed 5 games for RB Leipzig last season.

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